Happy New Year! I'm sorry if you gave up on me. I actually gave up on my ability to keep this blog going, and today's post doesn't exactly mean I'm back to writing regularly. When I started teaching full time in September, I knew life would get busy; what I didn't anticipate was having to get used to flying by the seat of my pants all the time. As a part-time teacher, I had lots of time to prepare my lessons. Granted, this meant that if I really calculated my hourly pay, I'd have had a hard time justifying working at all. Looking on the bright side, I don't work twice as much as before, mostly because there just aren't enough hours in the day. Looking on the dark side, I work an awful lot and most days I am planning right up to the moment my students walk in the door. I have had to get used to not always having a clear picture of what to do next, but I have learned that this is not always a bad thing. My students have become my guide far more, and we hav